Making Data Better
EP15: Money in the Metaverse with Dave Birch
Dave Birch is an authority and an ambassador for identity systems. And a great conversationalist. With co-author Victoria Richardson, he’s just published Money in the Metaverse: Digital assets, online identities, spatial computing and why virtual worlds mean real business. (US link here).
In this discussion with Steve and George, Dave introduces the book and takes us into their thinking about secure, private transactions in the metaverse. Or metaverses as he points out because it will be a multi-metaverse world.
Dave doesn’t let the slow evolution of 3D hardware or its high price stand in the way of his enthusiasm. We’ve seen similar transitions before, ones that drive ubiquity and precipitous hardware cost declines so it's time to get out ahead of what's coming.
Much of the conversation is relevant to today’s concerns, in advance of widespread metaverse adoption. So take a listen.
A note on their book.
Even if you are slightly skeptical (or more) about metaverse breadth or arrival date, Money in the Metaverse is a very worthwhile read as it discusses so many of the essential components and concerns that apply in today’s world. The challenges, and solutions, to identification and privacy are examined at depth. Victoria and Dave have used the bright light of use cases, stories, and tech from our current situation to explore identity infrastructure that works in the real world and, according to them, may work better in the metaverse.
Dave Birch is an authority and an ambassador for identity systems. And a great conversationalist. With co-author Victoria Richardson, he’s just published Money in the Metaverse: Digital assets, online identities, spatial computing and why virtual worlds mean real business. (US link here).
In this discussion with Steve and George, Dave introduces the book and takes us into their thinking about secure, private transactions in the metaverse. Or metaverses as he points out because it will be a multi-metaverse world.
Dave doesn’t let the slow evolution of 3D hardware or its high price stand in the way of his enthusiasm. We’ve seen similar transitions before, ones that drive ubiquity and precipitous hardware cost declines so it's time to get out ahead of what's coming.
Much of the conversation is relevant to today’s concerns, in advance of widespread metaverse adoption. So take a listen.
A note on their book.
Even if you are slightly skeptical (or more) about metaverse breadth or arrival date, Money in the Metaverse is a very worthwhile read as it discusses so many of the essential components and concerns that apply in today’s world. The challenges, and solutions, to identification and privacy are examined at depth. Victoria and Dave have used the bright light of use cases, stories, and tech from our current situation to explore identity infrastructure that works in the real world and, according to them, may work better in the metaverse.
Welcome to Making Data Better, a podcast about data quality and the impact it has on how we protect, manage and use the digital data critical to our lives. I'm George Peabody, partner at Lockstep Consulting, and thanks for joining us. With me is Lockstep founder, steve Wilson. Hello, steve.
Speaker 2:Good evening. Greetings from a different time zone, a different time of night. Good to be with you again, George.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm up earlier than normal, I confess. So, Steve, we have the great good fortune of bringing on an important thinker on digital, have the great good fortune of bringing on an important thinker on digital identity, and that, of course, is Dave Birch, who is an author, advisor, commentator on digital financial services, a thought leader in digital identity and digital money, and who holds a number of advisory roles across these fields. And he is the author of Identity is the New Money and a payments expert. Along with co-author Victoria Richardson, he authored Money in the Metaverse, Digital Assets, Online Identities, Spatial Computing and why Virtual Worlds Mean Real Business, published just last month by London Publishing Partnership. His co-author, Victoria Richardson, is COO of MECO, a company focused on verifiable trust and data. And well, with that minimalist introduction of your accomplishments, Dave, welcome to Making Data Better.
Speaker 3:It was minimalist, but it was very kind. George, it's really nice to see you again.
Speaker 1:Good to see you too. We are excited about this book that you've written. Well, I would say, in typical fashion for you, dave, it's a leap pretty far forward into the future from my humble perspective. Let's just start at the beginning. As I've been reading your book, I just come away with the question of is the metaverse the next incarnation of the internet? Is that why you wrote Money in the Metaverse?
Speaker 3:Well, actually why I wrote it was more to do with the money bit than the metaverse bit, because it happens that I was invited to an event in the metaverse using Spatial and it was fun. I really enjoyed it. I went to an event and I met lots of people that I hadn't spoken to for a while, from all over the world, and we were all walking around as our avatars and meeting each other, and it was really good. I really enjoyed it. You know, the um communications and connectivity were great and then I wanted to buy something and in order to buy something, I had to come out of the metaverse, go to like a 2d representation, scan a qr code, which took me to a website, and then type in card details and then go back into the metaverse um, and it sort of didn't seem right to me and I just I just kept thinking this can't be how things are going to work. This. Surely I would be doing things inside the. You know the way I think about these things and I spoke to a few people about it. I spoke to a guy who actually used to work for me a long time ago, but a guy who's a very experienced iOS developer, and he said it's insane to think that people are going to buy things, you know, taking off the glasses.
Speaker 3:And I started to look around and a lot of things I was reading were pushing me towards the kind of DeFi, tokenization side of things, which I mean I you know, steve and I have discussed this many times when I remain skeptical about cryptocurrency. I'm always open to new ideas about that, but I'm slightly unconvinced. But when it comes to tokenization, digital assets, web3 I I'm very. I mean, this is the next generation financial market infrastructure. There's absolutely no doubt about it. So the fact that people were talking about this in the metaverse and that sort of made sense to me. You know, you go in the metaverse, I give you a fungible token, you give me a non-fungible token, the there's no clearing, there's no settlement, there's no. That all kind of made sense to me.
Speaker 3:But then, of course, I brought my old perspective to it and thought, well, okay, that sounds good, but it can't work unless we have some kind of digital identity infrastructure, because I need to know that you're whatever over 18, or a lawyer or resident in australia, or I mean whatever it is. You know, know and so. And then that got me thinking about wallets and about how these would all be connected. And you know, I know a fair bit about wallets, but I don't know everything. But I knew that victoria did so, um, I spoke to victoria about it and of course, she's a brilliant digital strategist. So as soon as I started talking about these things, she immediately gave me a framework for thinking about it, which was incredibly helpful. And so I thought, actually, why not do the experiment of co-authoring? I've not done it before.
Speaker 3:Victoria kindly accepted the uh, the challenge. I have to say it was fun, it was a, it was a great way to write and, you know, she turned, I think, what was a pretty good book into into what's turned out to be a great book. So it was a very good experience. But yeah, it all goes back, george, to me just being in the metaverse and thinking this can't be right, this isn't going to be how people are going to buy and sell and and so on, and that's what let me, you know, let me down that line of thinking.
Speaker 1:Well, I loved your gentle mocking of the idea that one would go to a virtual bank branch in the metaverse.
Speaker 3:Well, because that's not such a far out.
Speaker 1:I mean, I just think those no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The last 10 years in fintech, embedding financial services at the point of need yes, exactly yes why on earth would I be schlepping my way over to some? Yes, exactly virtual branch to talk to a virtual teller when I should be able to affect the payment when I'm making the transaction. And, oh, maybe I want to get credit for a credit, a line of credit or insurance to cover up my purchase, whatever it might be.
Speaker 3:That's where the margins are going to be. The bank can come to you If Barclays wants to talk to me about something in the middle of it. They can show up where I am. I don't need to go to them anymore. I couldn't help making fun of that. I didn't mean to be disrespectful.
Speaker 1:I will be. It's okay, I'll take that on. Um, one of the things that troubles me is that, uh, my experience of metaverse thus far has really largely been big tech. Who are, let's face it, they're landlords, and they're actually more than landlords, so they write the rules of engagement within their territory right. And your book really envisions an alternative construction where there's an open and interoperable metaverse. Yes, I mean.
Speaker 3:I don't claim any originality for that thought. I mean, when I began to sort of look into it the, the, the first definition that sort of stuck in my mind I saw a thing in the financial times which said um, I mean, I'm paraphrasing, I don't have it in front of me, but it said something like the difference between virtual worlds and metaverses is that in metaverses, your identity and your assets are yours, not the platforms. You know when, when you, when you buy your magic sword in world of warcraft, you, you think it's like yours, but it's not really yours, it belongs to the platform, it belongs to blizzard entertainment, and they could delete it tomorrow or they could duplicate it or they could do whatever they wanted with it. The the crucial distinction between virtual augmented reality and metaverse is in a metaverse, the things are yours, the identity is yours, the, the assets are yours and you can move them between these environments, and that's that's the sort of big breakthrough.
Speaker 3:Now, of course, that immediately led me and I, and that made sense to me. You know, I sort of saw that. Okay, that's right, I understand. That sort of saw that. Okay, that's right, I understand that. But of course that immediately led me into thinking, okay, but how? I mean I like that construction, but how would it actually work? And that's um. That's why I think the uh, it sounds futuristic to talk about tokens and digital assets or whatever. It sounds futuristic, it isn't. It actually isn't really, if you think.
Speaker 3:Just focus on the metaverse for a second, because you said about, like a lot of people. You know, my first kind of experience was you go and look at the facebook thing, you put the goggles on and it's like, yeah, I mean whatever, it's really not that interesting, and you put the goggles away. You don't think about it anymore. Meanwhile, of course, facebook has been continually developing, refining that. The, the smart glasses, the addition of ai to the smart glasses, delivering the kind of ar, vr, and the augmented reality stuff through the glasses, as well as the new versions of the virtual anti-goggles, have changed a lot of things. I think it's it's of more than passing interest that one of the best-selling applications in fact, I think it's it's of more than passing interest that one of the best-selling applications in fact I think it might actually, at this point, be the best-selling application on the headset is the over 50s fitness club. You know, because I mean steve and I might well be able to kind of get each other going.
Speaker 2:You know like okay, but we don't want to look at each other, first thing in the morning.
Speaker 3:I mean we want to. Yeah, the avatars are a much better. And then, of course, along come apple and uh. If you read the first reviews of the apple uh vision pro, I mean I remember reading one I think it was vanity fair, but I can't remember and said you know, he spent a couple of hours playing in these Apple glasses. He was doing some spreadsheets and doing some work and whatever. And he said, when he took the glasses off and opened up his MacBook Pro, it felt like something. And I remember this quote distinctly. He said, you know, he had a top-of-the-range MacBook and he said it felt like something pulled from the rubble of a Soviet power station, you know. So it's like you know, we're only at the very start of that. This is like you know, they've built the Newton and you've got to kind of imagine what the iPad's going to look like. I mean, that's the kind of way I think of it.
Speaker 3:I said to somebody the other day. Someone said well, you know, these things are expensive. Who's going to pay $3,000 for these headsets? And I'm like, well, me for one. I actually tried to buy them, but you can't because they're geofenced so you can't take them outside the US at the moment. But just ask yourself this.
Speaker 3:I mean, when I bought my first apple I mean it's a long time ago, this is early 80s in california when I bought my first apple it cost, if memory serves, I think it costs about two and a half thousand dollars or something like that. I don't know the numbers exactly. Three thousand dollars isn't a lot. That's what a mac cost. That's what your first compact portable cost. I mean, that's, you know. It's a starting point. So so the first thing to point out is that you know a lot of our experience with the metaverse doesn't really tell us where we are, even a year on. I was just one of the companies I work with. They just bought those facebook headsets, the oculus. They just bought them for all of their developers because they found that having the developers have their meetings in virtual reality space was much more productive than having them meet on zoom or on phone calls, and they wanted all their developers to begin thinking about how their products are going to look, how they're going to work in that 3D environment. So people are already looking in that direction. Meanwhile, if you look at the next generation of consumers that are coming along, I mean we're old, so we tend to think what the kids are doing is YouTube or TikTok or whatever. But if you actually look at the figures for you know hours of attention per week what that next generation, the younger kids, are doing is already in the proto metaverses. So, in other words, the, the majority of their attention is already going on roblox, minecraft, fortnite well, you might think of as the proto metaverses. So so in a few years time, it's going to be quite natural for them to. I mean, that's how they meet their friends, that's how they socialize, that's how they connect, you know. So, in a very short time, brands are going to need to be in those spaces as well, otherwise they won't be able to connect with them.
Speaker 3:Look at what's happened at tv. I know this is a bit of a distraction, but I was at a focus group for a bank thing. It doesn't matter what, um, but they do. These focus groups where you're not allowed to speak. You sort of sit around the outside and they have a. They have a um, an experienced person in the middle who's talking to these were teenagers. You know, they were 16 years old. So they have an experienced person in the middle who's talking to the teenagers and you sit around the edge and you can't say anything. You just have to listen and, and what they're asking these kids about is some sort of banking products, but they have to disguise the question so the kids don't know what they're anyway.
Speaker 3:The point is, at one point during this, uh, the person in the middle said something about, um, an advertisement for a bank on the television. Which advertisement did you last see? Or something like that. And these kids were absolutely blank. They had absolutely no idea what she was talking about because they never watched television. And if they were watching television, they wouldn't be watching it when there was a bank add-on, because they'd be playing with their phones. Or well, that's where we're going next. You know, if you look at some of the stuff that's going on, I mean I was looking a couple of days ago. I was looking, I mean for reasons which had to do with work, not completely frivolously. Someone had built a giant model of Hogwarts or something in Minecraft and.
Speaker 3:I think like how much work was that? It's astonishing, you know. So the amount of effort that's already going into the proto-metaverses is substantial, but it's hamstrung by the fact that the things that they build aren't theirs. They belong to the platform.
Speaker 2:So we've got that issue of ownership and control. Yeah, 100%. How do we bridge from the metaverse to the real world?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And is that an old guy's feeling that we need to do that, or is it going to give way at some point?
Speaker 2:Well, I do feel that I want to talk about authenticity, which is, I think, the third pole of this. Yeah, you may know Mike from the Confidential Computing Consortium. We had him on in episode 13,. Dave, I'm talking about his book, which is all about trust. I need to read the title Trust in Computer Systems in the Cloud Great book Comparing trust online and trust in the real world, and how does one build and augment the other. We think that trust. You know you talk a lot about identity. I think that authenticity is a really good way of looking at that, because it's another way of looking at the question what do you need to know about anything and how do you know that it's real At some level? We're trying to avoid, you know, dictionaryism. Um, at some, at some level, the universe is not real. You know, maybe nothing is real. So have you reflected on what does authenticity mean? Like what is authentic?
Speaker 3:well, I think there's two. You know, when you say that steve, there are sort of two lines of thinking which I think come to the front. So the first is you know, of course, um, in the metaverse nothing's well, I mean, let's put to one side what, what real means, but these things are all virtual, of course, um, and we certainly don't want the metaverse to end up as, uh, the mess that we're in at the moment with the internet, where you know, nothing's real and you have no. You know, I mean literally in my twitter feed today. There's stuff there and I'm looking at this thinking is this real? You know, there's like the. There's like a page from the bbc with some bbc presenter and he's and I glanced at it and he's, he's shilling some cryptocurrency, like what. What is it?
Speaker 2:and of course, it's not real it's all this morning about the general election in the uk.
Speaker 3:That that's yeah, unfortunately that turns out to be real. But well, real, uh, and I'm? I know I'm looking at my email like I I see a thing from wait, what would? What did paypal ask me? I almost clicked on it. I'm thinking what is this and why are paypal asking me to do this again? You know, I'm about to click on it and I realize it's fake. It's not real at all. You know, I get a message on my whatsapp saying hey, you need to call me back about this. I'm almost about to. And then, like, wait, hold on a second. Why would? Why would they whatsapp me? You know, like at the moment, the onus is on us, right? It's a text message from Commonwealth Bank and I have to try and figure out whether it's real or not. The metaverse cannot work like that. Steve, you're spot on.
Speaker 2:How is it actually going to work? Do we have a handle yet on it?
Speaker 3:Because the whole panoply that was missing from the internet, the stuff that that's been our bread and butter for you know, a generation keys and certificates and digital signatures and encryption and whatever has to be part of the warp and weft, not something that's added on on top. So you know, if I'm going to, let's say, you and I are booking tickets for to go and see a comedy, I mean with something actually happened to you and I are booking tickets for to go and see a comedy. I mean with something that actually happened to me. So you and I are booking tickets to go and see a comedy event in the metaverse and you have to be over 18 in order to do this.
Speaker 3:There shouldn't be any issue of you having to show pictures of your driving license or whatever. It should simply be the case that when you, when you walk up, you don't even see it, like if you're not 18, it's not even there, you don't see anything. It should be that you know, if I get a message that's from Steve, I shouldn't have to double check, because you know, if it wasn't really from Steve, I would never see it, because somewhere in the infrastructure something would hold on. That signature doesn't check out. It's got to be like that. Um. I was reading some stuff the other day from the what they called the content um coalition.
Speaker 3:I've gone blank on the name yeah yeah, um, about this thing about so you can tell where the photos have been edited. I mean, I I'm a maximalist on this. I would just say, like in any metaverse I'd want to take part in, if the photo doesn't have a digital signature that says this comes from the New York Times or from George Peabody, I don't want to see it. I just I don't even see it. So a crucial distinction between the metaverse and the internet and the virtual worlds we have now is that that's going to be part of the infrastructure.
Speaker 3:You know, you've seen it when you put on your apple glasses, they do the, they do the biometric scan. You know I can't deliver your credentials to somebody else because it just doesn't work. You know I, there's no option. So that's, that's the first thing. But the second thing is this allows us a more sophisticated construction of what identity is, and instead of continuing to import what I think of as sort of analog notions into the digital world, instead of making sort of digital versions of analog things, we can sort of start again with a more granular construction.
Speaker 3:We have a whole set of tools at our disposal now that the people that built the original internet didn't have.
Speaker 3:We go into the metaverse with pure multi-party computation, with homomorphic encryption, with zero-knowledge proofs, with cryptographic blinding, with secure elements in our devices.
Speaker 3:We go into the metaverse with a completely different toolkit and I think it's going to be an absolute step change and the implications of that are quite clear because if it turns out that the metaverse is a safer, more secure place to do business, that directly translates into lower transaction costs and that directly translates in a pressure to move transactions into the metaverse. So, when it comes to it, vast majority of customers in, let's say, five years time, the fact that you'll be able to buy your car insurance quicker and cheaper and easier if you stick your facebook headset on, you know that will become commonplace. That will just be, instead of the kids just putting them on just to play Fortnite, they'll be putting them on to go to school, go to work, interact with brands. If you look at some of the case studies that Victoria has chosen from the book, I think she's picked out things which are very I don't want to say mundane that's the wrong word but not super complicated, special cases Every day, yeah, but everyday stuff, yeah, exactly, yeah.
Speaker 2:But having said that, I am worried. George's point at the opening about metaverse that we've seen so far is the construction of platforms. Somebody's going to pay for that of platforms. Somebody's going to pay for that. Have you have you thought about the economics of whether or not the net cost of this is really going to fall because somebody's going to have to pay a premium? I get it that authenticity is going to lower cost, but is that really going to net out?
Speaker 3:well, look, I mean, I I haven't. I can't show you a spreadsheet about that, but um, given, I just saw some figures this morning that say fraud in the UK. Well, reported fraud in the UK for banks was a billion pounds last year. Jesus, I think there's some slack in the system. I sort of remember that in the US, I think the single case of pandemic business support fraud was I don't even remember what it was 200 billion trillion, you know, or something.
Speaker 2:You know there is plenty of slack in there.
Speaker 3:Given some of the astonishing data breaches in Australia, ranging from, you know, optus to Working's Men, clubs, working's Men I think there's plenty of slack in the system there to take that up. If we think about how the original so you get one of these headsets just because I want to do the fitness thing or, you know, play some game or whatever, and then in a couple of years time, so I need to book the tickets for that thing, oh, actually, I'll just do it with the headset and then, a couple of years after that, it's oh, I really do need to go and think about refinancing the house. Oh, to go and think about refinancing the house. Oh, wait, if I look over there I can see, you know, and the way that the apple glass is very cleverly, you know, because we talk about. We've been talking about the metaverse, like the capital m, but actually, of course, the metaverse is a superset of lots of different metaverses. The metaverse where we go to do our fitness thing isn't going to be the same metaverse where, you know, I don't know, broker dealers go to negotiate. It's not going to be the same metaverse that auto engineers go to to to design cars. And there's going to be lots of metaverses, um, but the fact is, if it becomes natural to you know, without even thinking about it, you put the glasses on, you go into the metaverse which best suits what you want to do now, when you say, who's going to pay for it?
Speaker 3:I think for a lot of these things, and it's possibly because I think there is a little bit of reaction about platforms, you know. Uh, so I do think brand has a big role to play in that. Um, there'll be trusted brands like disney where people will want to go to do things. But I also wonder and I mean, you probably think I'm saying this just to be annoying, but I think it's actually true but if you look at the history of how new technologies have permeated and you take into account that two of the very large platforms that the EU have designated under the Digital Markets Act are Pornhub and StripChat, I think you can see another route into the mass market. Yeah well, I just think you know we shouldn't be too prissy about these kind of things. That's how stuff happens, so there's sort of different ways that those metaverses could evolve, but I think the general point is that you put the headset on because you want to go and or, as somebody was saying to me earlier on today in a different context, you want to go play pickleball and then it's just easier just to keep the headset on when you want to buy the car insurance. I mean, that's kind of how it works.
Speaker 3:And there's also the connectivity issue. If you look at why, are kids logging into Fortnite after school and meeting their friends in Fortnite? It's the connectivity aspect of it. So if you think of that in mercenary revenue terms like this weekend is the cup final, manchester City versus Manchester United I can't be there.
Speaker 3:If I could put on my glasses and I'm in the stands there watching the game, would I do that rather than watch it on TV? Yes, I would. Would I pay $10 more than watching it on TV? $20 more? Wouldn't think twice about it. I would happily pay $20 more. Now take that a step further. I'll happily pay $20 to put the headset on and I'm there in the stand watching the game. But if my buddies could put their headsets on as well and we're all standing together watching the game, I wouldn't care about paying fifty dollars, a hundred dollars for that. That's a different experience. You know, going to the game is one thing, going to a game with your friends is a completely different thing, so that connectivity aspect of it is also very critical. It isn't just the content, it's how you experience that and how you're connected to other people to experience that.
Speaker 2:I haven't had the pleasure of a vision probe, but I believe that the veracity is extraordinary, so it is vivid. It's much higher resolution I blogged about seven or eight years ago. My early experience of Twitter for a couple of years was forming really deep and meaningful relationships with people that were so strong that when I did meet them face-to-face we thought that we had been friends for much longer.
Speaker 3:People thought that we'd always. No, but you're right, steve, that was an interesting part of the twitter phenomenon, yeah yeah, there's people I know really well now because of, because of twitter you know, sorry, george, we got a bit sidetracked answering the question.
Speaker 1:That was a well worth the the.
Speaker 3:Uh well, it's hardly a detour, in fact the authenticity point steve makes, though, is very is very central to this, because and it's not the same as identity, and I actually I don't I don't have the book in front of me right now. I probably should get get a bit better at this promotional stuff. But one of the examples I think I use in the book was from the pandemic when there was an issue in the US Was it Los Angeles, I can't remember Somebody said look, we've started this online discussion group for emergency room physicians that are dealing with COVID to share experiences and whatever. And of course you know it's immediately problematic because you've no idea whether the person coming in is actually a physician or not, or just some internet lunatic that wants to join in. So the crucial enabler for that wasn't you know whether you're Dave Birch or Steve Wilson or whatever it's, whether you're dave birch or steve wilson or whatever it's, whether you're an accredited emergency room physician whose license is currently valid in california.
Speaker 3:Now I can see that in the metaverse, the ability to easily transport and demonstrate those credentials becomes very transformational compared to the original internet, where you didn't know who anybody was or, more to the point, you didn't know what anybody was. Um, in the internet, you got into this kind of well. Actually, you have it now with social media because you know people are saying, uh, in, in certain areas this is already sort of becoming law, uh. But I can see the situation where you've got a room for teenagers who have some kind of particular mental health issues or something like that, and you want to make sure the only people in that room are actually teenagers or are mental health professionals who are accredited or something like that. That will become very natural in the metaverse, because because managing those credentials and certificates is part of the infrastructure, not some crazy add-on I mean look how far we've got with just. I mean I know it sounds, but I mean we've had digital signatures for 25 years. Right, nobody uses them, no one knows how to use it properly.
Speaker 3:That's not quite true when I get messages from facebook no, no, my messages from facebook are encrypted and digitally signed, because facebook have an option that says would you like our communication to be secure? Click here and then you upload your public key to do it. My bank doesn't do that. When I get an email from my bank, I've absolutely no idea whether it's from the bank or not. You know, and and in fact I mean I probably shouldn't make fun, but one of the I did take a screenshot of it one of the emails I had I had at christmas. So I had an email from my bank which said, uh, it was to do with christmas and it was like top tips to stay safe from fraud this christmas. And one of the top tips was never click on a link in an unsolicited email.
Speaker 3:You know, and I read down and at the bottom of the email is for more information about our anti-fraud act, which is click on this link you know, it's like so Facebook can encrypt and sign stuff, but my bank can't, and that doesn't seem anyway. If that was part of the infrastructure, we could stop thinking about it you know I of the infrastructure.
Speaker 1:We could stop thinking about it. I've always particularly coming from payments, where there's margin for all the providers to be interested in the business. In the security business we're looking at a cost-based problem. So I'm intrigued and I may agree with youave that with um, if I'm paying a hundred dollars to be able to stand next to my, my friends who want man you to win um, you know that's, there may be margin there to be able to build out that kind of security infrastructure that you're talking about, because, god, as you say, we haven't seen it in the real world. One of the things that still troubles me is the interface between the world that you're talking about, dave, this secure metaverse, and the very fact that I am a biological being. Someone's got to know about me for legibility purposes from the government. How is it that I can be identifiable in the metaverse as a human being? What do I have to enroll with to be able to participate in a situation?
Speaker 3:Let me say two things about that, george, because I think Steve will find one of them more controversial than the other. So, first of all, the important point, I think, is when we're talking about transactions in the metaverse, in almost all cases I don't actually care who you are. What I care is that you're authorized to do some kind of transaction or not. Whether you're George Peabody or not, I don't care. Are you authorized to sell me this ticket or enter this emergency, I mean whatever? So who you are really isn't that important. The fact that you're a person might be important, but not the fact that you're a particular person. So I might need to know in certain circumstances I'm actually dealing with a human being in In most cases I really don't. You know, when I go to the bank.
Speaker 3:This happened to me the other day when I was using the chat thing at the bank because I needed the IBAN, the International Bank Account Number, and I come where is this? And I look on the website, I can't see it. So I go to sort of the chat thing. I said, well, you know, can you confirm your name and address? And I'm like no, what's that got to do with it? Like just tell me the well, once those chatbots get a bit more intelligent. So you know, it sees I don't know, maybe it sees my ip address or it sees I've accessed something else and it can answer in natural language. You need to look on the top right of the statement, which was true. I hadn't looked at that sort of thing, you know. Do I care that was a person or not? I, I really don't.
Speaker 1:I just care that we're talking about risk. We're talking about risk-based assessments, right yeah?
Speaker 3:so most, most times, it really doesn't matter. Or to Steve's point about the distinction between, um, you know, kind of authenticity and identity, that I think is heading towards the fractal, like I. I I wonder, like I look at the internet right now and I think this is you know, I can't tell what's real and what's not real. I think this is absolutely appalling, you know, I don't know, maybe a lot of people don't care what's real and what's not real.
Speaker 2:I think this is absolutely appalling. I don't know. Maybe a lot of people don't care what's real and what's not real. We're certainly converging, is that? In all of these situations, the question should be what do you really need to know about the counterparty? Or what do you really need to know about that image that's in front of you? Or what do you really need to know about the man you ticket that you think that you just bought?
Speaker 3:ticket that you think that you just bought. So yeah, I mean, the authenticity of those things I think is is, you know, obviously you, you know you simply wouldn't be able to buy a ticket that wasn't authentic. It just the system just wouldn't work. I mean, tickets are actually a very good example, because tickets are a perfect use case for nfts. You know, a ticket to go to the cup final on saturday in this seat, in this row, that's, that's a perfect example of an nft. You know you can't make a counterfeit one. There's just no such thing as a counterfeit one.
Speaker 3:You know, it's like with people I, you know, and I I'm not an anthropologist, so I I don't know how this is gonna pan out, but I already read evidence and in fact there's an example in the book that, um, that victoria uses.
Speaker 3:There are interesting use cases already where you have people who prefer to talk to a computer Like there's not just in a weird kind of way where you see people have boyfriends and girlfriends that are non-existent, although I did notice there's a little US case study in there which was a thing where women had virtual boyfriends they were talking to and they were sending these virtual boyfriends some inappropriate pictures. So the platform turned this off, turned off the ability to send these pictures, and the users were outraged by it. We enjoyed sending those pictures and the fact that they're not mad. They know that these don't exist, they're just virtual, but there's a lot there we don't, or certainly there's a lot there that I don't understand. So this issue about real and not real person, not a person, this to me, this is look, it looks very fractal. I don't quite know where that's going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you're right. I look very fractal. I don't quite know where that's going. Yeah, I think you're right. I think we've got training wheels on at the moment, largely because of risk, largely because we feel as though any risk mitigation or any making good is going to happen in the real world. So you know, that's our sense at the moment. I'm with you. This could change.
Speaker 3:I remember working on a project years ago, steve, which was to do with car loans actually, and and I remember distinctly the bank to see if they're potentially eligible for this low. But they would go to a kiosk and put their personal details into a kiosk and so the bank could actually wasn't a bank, it was a. It was a non-bank financial institute. But the point is they could drive up their, their rate of giving out these car loans by getting people to come to kiosks instead of phoning up. And now that was 20 years ago.
Speaker 3:Things have moved on and changed there, but there is something there, you know. I mean, maybe there are, maybe there's things to do with my finances or other things. I would, I would rather go into the metaverse. I. I need that trust, I need the reputation. I need to know that I really am talking to a financial advisor or a psychiatrist or a bank manager or a bank robber or you know whatever. Um, who they are don't care. Are they real, personal? Not, not sure I care. You know you could. You could see a situation where you have economic avatars, bots that are regulated under the. In the uk we have the financial conduct authority duty of care. You could imagine seeing bots that are regulated under the financial conductuct Authority duty of care, and I wouldn't care in the slightest whether it was a real person or not, as long as it's properly regulated, you know, I'm fine.
Speaker 1:We're still very much in a social experiment, and where we're headed, I mean a particular concern I've got is seeing kids just completely focused on their smartphone and not being able to look up and interact with other individuals, distractibility in school and all that kind of thing. Well, that's part of the experiment that we're all undergoing and all participants in. So, Dave, what you're pointing is very interesting and I really appreciate your time. I think we need to wrap this up. I'm finding the book really intriguing and stimulating, so I'm looking forward to particularly diving into Victoria's use cases. They deserve some detailed examination.
Speaker 3:All I'll say, George, is when you begin to think about it. It seems far-fetched when you first think about it, but the more time you spend thinking about it, the fact that we're going to be living and working in this kind of different way, it's really not as crazy as it sounds at first.
Speaker 1:Well, David, thanks so much for joining us on Making Data Better. Really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2:It's great to see you guys. I wish I could see you at the MetaRite Interverse, but maybe next week.
Speaker 3:There you go. Well, next time we'll try this in Spatial or something like that and we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 3:Sounds like a plan.
Speaker 2:Great talking to you.